acidfast7

I literally roll the bike outside and tip my pan over the chain while I spin the cranks backwards ... then I leave the pan outside for the cats to lick clean. Then I clean and cook with it the next day ... probably have about 1000 uses out of it, which is great value for the money.

my pan is the best

also, it smells quite nice up the hills!

noglider 

That's a very good report from @tsl, because he is one tough cyclist with a large enough sample size to say what makes a difference.

I'm using chainsaw oil currently which seems almost as nice as Chain-L. Viscosity is similar. When it runs out or when I feel like making an impulse purchase, I'll buy another bottle of Chain-L.

Thank you, @tsl. I put some weight into what you say works and doesn't work.

FBinNY 

What am I? Chopped liver?




(couldn't resist the setup)

noglider 

Chopped livah?

I don't remember any legendary ride report from you other than the car bumper rolling onto the top of your front wheel. Maybe I've missed some. Actually, given what we know about you, I bet you do have a few great stories to tell.

FBinNY 

It was rhetorical, and didn't call for an answer. I do have some stories to tell after 45 years riding a bike, but it's not generally my nature. To me swapping stories is something done over beer, with all parties participating.

noglider 

Last week, I attended a meeting of the Brooklyn Vintage Wheelmen, and there were some TALL TALES told. I'm finally able to tell when this is happening. Normally, I'm pretty gullible.

FBinNY 

That's my problem, the VAST majority of my riding is so plain vanilla uneventful that it has about as much interest as what I ate for dinner last week.

10 Wheels

Just USE 1/2 Drop on each link...That is all I need.

Altair 4

LOL! About 15 to 20 minutes per bike and the peace and quiet I have in the basement while engaging in my voodoo chain maintenance is priceless. If I could find a slower method, I might even try it!

tsl

Most recently, DuMonde Tech, the original blue stuff. Prior to that, Pedro's Wet. Once upon a time, Pro Link and TriFlow

tsl

Thanks, Tom.

For the record, I know that my experience isn't universal, thus, my opinions are not authoritative.

Lots of people disagree with my opinions, and I'm totally cool with that.

RubeRad

I tried that, but I found it quite difficult to divide each drop into two equal halves.

noglider 

@tsl, I realize your experience isn't the be-all and end-all, and I think everyone else (with a brain) should understand this. The point is that your testimony is particularly useful.

acidfast7

Good because I disagree with everything you say.





No, not really.

RubeRad

Personally, I prefer not to warm up the Chain-L to apply, I find that makes it too loose, and I end up making a mess. Applying it room-temp (or rather garage-temp), I find I can control the drop size more precisely, then let it wick overnight. I run it backwards a little bit to ensure even distribution, but I'm pretty sure that's more for peace of mind than anything else. Paper-towel off the excess and good to go. No problem with oil 'spidering' off the pulleys or anything like that.

And that's just the extra application if the chain starts to 'ask' for it. My primary method nowadays is to keep chains in rotation. When a chain comes off, it soaks in a simple green solution for a while, gets rinsed off, and then baked in a low oven (200-ish) for half an hour or so to really dry it out. After it cools, I carefully coil it up flat, and place inside my 1qt ziploc marination bag, and squirt maybe 1tsp-1tbsp of chain-L on it, and let it sit for 6mo or so until it gets rotated back onto the bike. Whenever I think about it (every month or two?) I flip it to let the pooled Chain-L redistribute.

jsjcat

Chain-L has some specific instructions and if followed will eliminate the issues you had. Yes, it takes a little while to penetrate into the rollers and then is wiped off. I wipe mine several times after application to get the excess off. I've used the OMS and Mobil 1 formula also. I think Chain-L works better.

acidfast7

How does one really assess this objectively?

The only real testing I've seen is from EFBE Prüftechnik GmbH and they don't do chains, unfortunately, as they're not a safety issue.

jsjcat

Hi acidfast7,
What chain lube do you like?

acidfast7

I already answered that. I use the grease from my cooking pans before it solidifies.

asmac

I try to do major cleaning/degreasing off the bike and dry them in the BBQ. Then I store them in a jar of bar/chain oil awaiting future use.

wphamilton

You're serious? After you razzed me about how the mushrooms need to be the perfect kind in your pasta, or something like that, and how you wouldn't ingest cheap calories, you leave the pan outside with old grease for who knows how long - and then let the cats lick it? It just seems so ... inconsistent. Disillusioning.

Doesn't the bike's odor of old grease, there in the hallway, interfere with the finely tuned palette?

jsjcat

I'd be more worried about the grease you ingest than what goes on your chains but if it works for you, have at it. YOu sound like the world's most interesting man my friend!

wphamilton

I was going to lube half the chain with one oil, half with another, and check the wear on each half. It appeals to me because the obvious first reaction is "that can't work", but when you think about it a bit more maybe it could. The one big advantage is that conditions are exactly the same for each lubricant.

Objection is cross-contamination but that's not a given and could be tested. If there was eventually an equal distribution that would be a problem. Personally I think that's unlikely - if it were the case I'd just oil every other link when I lube my chain, or every 5th link, or squirt it at random. I've never seen anyone (reasonable) advise that procedure however, so I'm skeptical that all of the links exchange their oil with each other.

But if there is only a slight cross-contamination, and it leads to no measurable difference between the two lubes, then either a) the lube is too susceptible to contamination or b) diluting the more expensive oil makes no difference, or c) there was no difference to begin with. In each case, no reason to prefer one of the lubes.

Altair 4

Mmmmm - marinated chain fresh off the barbie! Tasty!

RubeRad

I like the idea of the 50-50 test. How would you remember which half was which? I would maybe choose midpoints that are at 1/4 points from the quicklink, so the quicklink is in the middle of one of the halves, and the other half has no quicklink. But then that puts the quicklink right in the minimal-cross-contamination sweet-spot you'd want to measure. Maybe divide the chain into the half that's 'ahead' of the quicklink vs the half that's 'behind' the quicklink? Check wear in the middle of each half?